


Mistletoe

by viceindustrious



Category: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: Advent Challenge 2010, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coward loves Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day fifteen of the adventchallenge. Prompt: Mistletoe. Creative titling! This is getting hard now. Thanks the_me09 for convincing me to stick to it. :3

Coward loves Christmas. He loves the luxury of a fire burning in every room, all the lamps lit, a candle for every shadow and damn the expense. He loves the opulence of gold and silver set out on the table and hung from the tree and festooning the halls. The overstuffed bounty of bustling green wreaths and baskets of sugared fruit, roasted nuts, fruitcake that's dark with treacle and sticky with brandy.

He loves gifts. Picking out the perfect thing, browsing boutiques, dictating imperiously to craftsmen what sort of pattern they should be using for _this_ handkerchief or _that_ cravat. He figures he has an eye made to match presents to people. He has an eye that can lay out a man's character after all, pin it down and dissect it into its constituent parts. He has a mind that remembers these judgements and labels - their weaknesses, their strengths, the places he can apply pressure or a soothing touch to finesse his way. Or to give a marvellous gift.

He loves receiving gifts too, that particular kind of pleasure that comes in sneering at something utterly gauche. Smiling, practising his politesse, a picture of graciousness.

No gift is ever going to measure up to the one Henry gave him all those Christmases ago. Standing beneath the mistletoe at a quarter to midnight, frozen and fearful with his breath dying slowly in his lungs, Henry had given him a kiss.

But Coward catches Blackwood watching him sometimes, sees Henry looking when he doesn't realize he's being observed and thinks that maybe taking that kiss was the most perfect gift he ever gave as well.


End file.
